The devil's in the details . . .

What makes a house a home? This age-old question makes the distinction between mere building materials and a sense of place. Not including the to-and-fro during college semesters, I've gone through five major moves and each time I've pondered this question. What exactly are the conditions or factors that help to form the sense of grounding and familiarity and security in a structure to create a home?

Think about where you are right now. When you live in your home, the one you've been in for awhile, there's no question that it's your home. It's not just a place where you eat and sleep---it's your home. There's no doubt about it. It just is. And it only exists in the now.

You rarely think about what place is coming next. There is no next, there's just the now. Home can only be a place experienced in the present. Sure, there may have been places you lived before, and those were home at some point, but they aren't any longer. They were a home, but remain as a home only in memory. Home lives in the current, in the now.

There may be an upcoming move or a vague "in two years I'll be in another city" idea in your mind, but until that actually occurs and you've done the move, your now home is your only home. It's difficult to believe that any other place could take the place of where you are now. There will always be wishes and dreams and fantasies, and we can sometimes crave something more in where we live, but the grass is always greener from afar. We should make do with what we have, make it the best it can be, work with what we've got---and it's that effort and care that we put toward a location or situation that transforms it into a home.

Making a home requires a process that happens over time. We might not notice the change when we're in the middle of it. What makes your place your home? What does it say about you and only you? For me, this house is starting to feel like home in subtle ways. It's nothing that bowled me over, but it's a few small things that provide that sense of familiarity.

First, it's the light switches. I can walk into any room in the house now and my hand knows exactly where to go to turn on the light. I don't stop on the threshold to put my hand of the wall, to search and feel around for the light switch, or perhaps look for it. I just keep on walking with eyes front, swing my hand over to the wall, and flick the switch as I'm walking by. It's seems like such a simple thing.

Next, it's the faucets on the sinks. I've learned to turn the handles to the precise positions for the perfect water temperatures. That info took weeks to process but now it's like second nature. When was the last time you actually looked at (or thought about) your faucet handles when you turned them on?

Last, it's the peculiar noises that this house makes. The furnace makes a click-whoosh when it turns on. When I hear a shaky hollow tapping sound, I know it's a certain drafty window rattling. The sharp, loud metal clang two or three times in the middle of the night---that's the radiator in the bedroom. And it no longer wakes me up each and every time.

Those things show me I'm getting used to this house, and that it's starting to morph from house to home. It's the small things that maybe we can't put a finger on, or those habitual innate details that we never give any real thought to---those small things in a gestalt way create a home.